Class Notes and Reflection for Tuesday, November 9, 2021

 

Topic: Class Presentations/Demos for apps, websites, and software programs for music writing, recording, and teaching.

#1: My presentation and demos for SightReadingFactory.com

#2 Bailey: Logic Pro X

• DAW program w/ MIDI Sequencer
• Apple program; acquired by Apple in 2002 
• One-time purchase fee of $199 (bundle-pricing for teachers with numerous students)
• In class: use of MIDI, loop library, mixing/mastering, record multiple tracks.

#3 Steven: SmartMusic

• Web-based suite of music education tools 
• Immediate feedback/scoring for students to see the accuracy of their recorded excerpts are with regard to pitch, rhythm, intonation, articulation, etc.
• Substantial library of repertoire across genres: the classical canon, band music, jazz. Students can play their part along with the rest of the pre-recorded ensemble. 
• Sight-reading builder
• Professional reference recordings
• Suggested repertoire lists for concerts based on themes, level of difficulty, season, etc. 
• Performance notes
• Teacher: $39.99, student $29.99

#4: Adella: Incredibox

• Composition software
• Drag performance elements onto group of avatars and they start singing like a band
• Helpful and less intimidating for younger kids and students with various disabilities; way less overwhelming with the fewer buttons, knobs, setting options, etc.

#5: Joe: Songster

• Guitar-geared program that mostly uses tab-notation.
• Free. Paid subscription opens up more options
• Find-a-teacher option
• Run by and contributions made by musicians (Wikipedia-like in that respect).

#6: Alyssa: Classics for Kids

• Naomi Lewin
• Generates daily itineraries/lesson plans for general music class activities.
• Countries and composers, quizzes, Links for books and videos and lesson plan templates.

#7: Mae: YouTube Music

• YouTubeKids
• Playlist creatin
• Private vs. public
• Altered playback speed

#8: Sibelius

• Long been the world's best-selling music notation software, founded in 1993
• Almost 100 score-notation templates for varied ensemble and solo writing
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts
• Change colors of noation
• Plug-in/command options
• Music classes: worksheet generator, and can contribute your own worksheet templates.
• Music XML
• MIDI-date (can accept Logic)
• Free version and educational "packages"

#9: Bella: Musicca.com

• Free music theory-teaching and learning program
• Similar to musictheory.net, but has limited rhythmic exercises as of yet.
• Visual tools: GREAT for visualizing fingerings for scales. Example is choosing a string instrument, say cello, and picking a two octave scale. An image of the cello fingerboard (laid horizontal, but can be rotated) comes up, the scale is played, and there's a light on each point on the fingerboard to it's corresponding pitch as the scale plays through.
• Programmable drum-set

#10: Shawn: MuseScore

• Free, small file-size
• 22 languages
• Beautifully straightforward, user-friendly, minimalist-style music notation program.
• 100's of templates and unlimited amount of material one can write.
• One can upload to unofficially "publish" their own score of something

#11: Devin: forScore

• $20 for app
• Music library software
• Takes PDFs
• Tuner, metronome, drone pitch
• Playlists
• Works best w/ iPads
• Bluetooth page-turner
• Can mark scores with a digital pencil

#12: Matt E: Garage Band

• Exclusively an Apple program
• Mac OSX/Apple iOS
• Guitar and piano lessons from credible artists!
• Multi-track recordings
• MIDI keyboard plug-in
• Loop library
• Export options
  

 #13: Caleb: Ella

• Free sight-singing app
• Recordable: you record your reading of an exercise, it will score you on your accuracy.
• Great for out-of-class assignments.

#14: Kiernan: Tonal Energy

• Multi-purpose app
• Tuner: play or sing a pitch a given pitch, it will indicate how close one is through faces. Puzzled face indicates being off, big grin is when you're spot on.
• Available on all devices for $3.99
• Metronome with lots of options
• Pitch tracker: Students can play a scale and it will graphically depict the intonation on each pitch. 

#15: BandLab

• Sound-sampling mobile app
• Pre-recorded or ones you record on your own
• Similar to SoundTrap, but geared towards younger students. 

#16: Matt M.: Audacity

• Tutorial about noise reduction, silencing, and amplifying regions
• Tacking clips and chopping them up.
• Limited notes on this one, we already covered it on class...

Commentary

Another very insightful class, this is an invaluable resource list. This plus the resource list we made as an assignment during the first five weeks of the course gives me a great deal of confidence and reassurance as a music teacher. There are many outlets I learned about today that can be tremendously beneficial even before I get a position in a public school. Learning more about music recording/notating software was good, but it more the teaching and learning ones I found most valuable. Not that the recording/notating software presentations weren't informative, but we've covered numerous of them in class, and I've used MuseScore and GarageBand many times over the years.

The music learning and teaching ones really got me thinking about my current private cello students, some of whom I've been working with for 3+ years. I've gained a wealth of new ideas for teaching them on numerous points. I'm really eager to try TonalEnergy's option for tracking intonation note-by-note through a scale. Every year I have one to four students auditioning for PMEA Districts, and giving them an exact percentage for their intonational accuracy in the scales is tough. Yes, you can hear if it's perfectly in tune, numerous notes out of tune, or really off. But it's those that are playing the scales ever-so-slightly out of tune on two or three pitches is where it's tough to pinpoint which ones are still the problem notes. Especially at a fast-ish tempo and trying to pinpointing (and remember) exactly which pitch(es) is/are out of tune. 

I also have a few students who needed to use SmartMusic almost exclusively for their school music programs during from March, 2020 - May, 2021,  and continue to do so to a lesser extent. They felt really discouraged an overwhelmed, and I'm eager to help them with it, I know there's a tremendous variety of resources, but users really need to be guided through it.